Notorious teacher sex scandals

Alaina Ferguson

Alaina Ferguson, 23, was arrested and charged with sexual assault on Nov. 30, 2016. A 16-year-old boy allegedly told police he had a relationship with the Texas teacher that was sparked by a note he left on an Algebra test, in which he wrote his Snapchat user name.

Credit: CBS affiliate KHOU

Alexandria Vera

Reports of teachers accused of unlawful sexual relationships with their students continue to surface. Here are some of the stories that made headlines.

Texas middle school English teacher Alexandria Vera, 24, turned herself in to authorities June 1, 2016, after authorities issued a warrant for her arrest on a continuous child sex abuse charge.

Court documents allege Vera had a nine-month sexual relationship with a 13-year-old male student who authorities say impregnated her. She allegedly later terminated the pregnancy after officials began investigating the case.

Court documents allege she was introduced to the boy’s family as his girlfriend, and the woman said that his parents supported the relationship and invited her to family gatherings. She reportedly said she told a school district investigator the family was “very supportive and excited” when she disclosed her pregnancy. She allegedly said she and the boy “love each other.”

She pleaded guilty in Novermber 2016 to a lesser charge of aggravated sex assault of a child in a plea deal with prosecutors.

Credit: KHOU

Debra Lafave

Florida middle school teacher Debra Beasley Lafave was accused of having sex numerous times in 2004 with a 14-year-old student, including once in a car while his 15-year-old cousin drove. The newlywed was 23 at the time of the abuse.

Credit: Tim Boyles/Getty Images

Debra Lafave

Debra Lafave was a reading teacher at Greco Middle School in Temple Terrace, Fla., a few miles north of Tampa when, in 2004, she was charged with two counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a person under 16-years-old. Lafave pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years house arrest and seven years probation.

Credit: Chris O Meara/AP

Debra Lafave

Debra Lafave is seen in a Hillsborough County court Dec. 18, 2007. A court ultimately granted LaFave early release from her sex offender probation after she gave birth to twin boys in 2011, a ruling upheld by the Florida Supreme Court. But LaFave was still required to register as a sex offender.

Credit: St. Petersburg Times/AP

Sarah Jones

Former Cincinnati Bengals cheerleader Sarah Jones pleaded guilty on Oct. 8, 2012, to lesser charges on allegations that she had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student when Jones was a teacher at Dixie Heights High School in northern Kentucky. Her mother, Cheryl Jones, also pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of tampering with evidence. Both women avoided jail time as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.

Credit: AP Photo/David Stluka

Carrie McCandless

Carrie McCandless, a former Brighton Collegiate High School teacher and wife to the school principal in Colorado, was accused of having sexual contact with a 17-year-old student while chaperoning a school camping trip. She turned herself in to authorities in Nov. 2006.

The next year, she reportedly pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and tampering with physical evidence. A felony child sex assault charge was dropped under a plea deal with prosecutors.

Credit: AP Photo/Jefferson County Jail

Carrie McCandless

Carrie McCandless, shown in this June 2007 photo during her sentencing hearing at Fort Collins, Colo., was pleaded guilty to having an inappropriate sexual relationship with a high school student. The 29-year-old was sentenced to 45 days in jail, five years of probation and a four-year deferred sentence.

Her probation was revoked and she was sentenced to an additional 60 days in jail in 2011 after she failed a court-ordered drug test. She remains a registered sex offender.

Credit: AP Photo/Sherri Barber

​Brianne Altice

Brianne Altice, a former Utah high school English teacher, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three teenage boys, 16 and 17, who had been students.

Altice, now 36, was initially free on bail after her 2013 arrest, but was sent to jail in 2015 after allegations emerged that she continued a sexual relationship with one of the boys while she was out on bail.

One boy said that he considered her to be his girlfriend during their year-long sexual relationship.

But the boys were all minors, and Utah law also says a person cannot consent to sex if the other person is in a position of special trust. Altice pleaded guilty to three counts of forcible sexual abuse in exchange for prosecutors dropping 11 other counts, including several first-degree felonies.

Credit: AP

Haeli Noelle Wey

Haeli Noelle Wey, a former math teacher, was arrested in December 2015 for allegedly having an improper relationship with two of her students, reports CBS affiliate KEYE.

Wey, 28, was reportedly charged with two counts of improper relationship between educator and student. She had been teaching at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas until Oct. 30, 2015.

Credit: Travis County Sheriff's Office via CBS affiliate KEYE

Mary Haglin

Twenty-four-year-old Mary Haglin was arrested July 22, 2016 and charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee. Authorities in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, say she had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old boy. Haglin told CBS affiliate KGAN that she regrets what took place.

"I'm not shying away from this, I'm not running away from this. I'm facing this head on," Haglin said. However, the suspect said the school knew about the relationship and bears some of the responsibility.

"The environment that the school put me in didn't help to curb anything," Haglin said. "These people all knew what was going on and yet they turned a blind eye because they wanted to protect their school."

Credit: CBS affiliate WGAN

Kimberly Naquin

Kimberly Naquin, a geography teacher, was arrested in January 2016. She's accused of having a sexual relationship with a female student, then 16, she taught at Destrehan High in St. Charles Parish, La. The alleged sex happened at Naquin's former apartment complex in Kenner between Aug. 2014 and Sept. 2015. Destrehan High was also the subject of controversy in 2014 when two other female teachers were accused of having sex with a 16-year-old boy.

Credit: WWLTV

Kyle Damato-Kushel

Kyle Damato-Kushel, a 45-year-old teacher's aide from Bridgeport, Conn., was accused of carrying on a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy that she once taught in preschool.

Kyle Damato-Kushel was arraigned Dec. 21, 2015 on charges of sexual assault, impairing the morals of a child and tampering with a witness.

She has pleaded not guilty.

Credit: ​CBS Affiliate WFSB

Virginia Houston Hinckley

Virginia Houston Hinckley, a 26-year-old St. Augustine, Fla. high school teacher charged with having unlawful sexual activity with a 16-year-old boy, turned herself in on Dec. 9, 2015.

CBS affiliate WKMG reported that the student told police he became "flirty" with Hinckley, his English teacher, days after school began and that he and others commented on how she was pretty and how he "tickled" her.

The student initially asked for Hinckley's phone number, according to the station. She said no, but when he asked again the next day, she gave it to him and told him not to tell anyone, the affidavit said.

The two began exchanging text messages, including nude photos, according to the student. They then allegedly had sex in a park.

Credit: CBS affiliate WJAX

Nicole Dufault

Nicole Dufault, 35, of New Jersey, was charged with aggravated sexual assault and child endangerment in a 40-count indictment.

Authorities have alleged that 14- and 15-year-old boys were sexually assaulted many times in 2013 and 2014 by the language arts teacher. They say some of the sex acts occurred on school property and in her car.

Dufault sought twice in 2016 to have the indictment against her dismissed, but a court ruled each time the charges should stand.

Credit: Essex County Prosecutor’s Office via CBS New York

Kathryn Ronk

A former teacher at a Detroit-area high school accused of having sex with a 15-year-old student was sentenced to 6-to-15 years in prison in 2015.

Kathryn Ronk, 30, pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conduct as part of a sentencing deal. She had faced five counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Authorities said she engaged in sexual acts with the teenager in classrooms at Bishop Foley High School in Madison Heights. Ronk was a Spanish teacher at the school, north of Detroit.

Credit: CBS Detroit

Melody Lippert & Michelle Ghirell

Melody Lippert, 38, and Michelle Ghirelli, 30, were arrested in January 2015 after allegedly having sex with students on a November beach trip in California.

Both Lippert and Ghirelli worked at South Hills High School, located outside of Los Angeles, and were married with families at the time.

Lippert had allegedly met up with a group of male students in November 2014 and supplied them with alcohol, also having sex with one of them, investigators say.

Several weeks later, Ghirelli and Lippert held another trip with several of the same students. The two teachers are accused of having sex with two male students on that trip -- one was 18 and another was a minor.

The women reportedly pleaded guilty to felony statutory rape charges and were sentenced to probation.

Credit: Orange County Sheriff's Dept. via CBS Los Angeles

Rachel Respess and Shelley Dufresne

In October 2014, two teachers at Louisiana's Destrehan High, Shelley Dufresne, 32, and Rachel Repress, 24, were accused of inviting a 16-year-old student to a home for a sexual encounter. Dufresne faces two charges in Jefferson Parish of carnal knowledge of a juvenile, and has pleaded not guilty. She will be tried alongside Repress, who pleaded not guilty to a charge of failure to report Dufresne's alleged crime.

Dufresne, a married mother of three, also faced sex charges in St. Charles Parish and reportedly admitted to having sex with a student at a home there.

Credit: CBS AFFILIATE WWLTV

Danielle Watkins

Danielle Watkins, a 32-year-old teacher from Connecticut, is accused of having a sexual relationship with a student during the summer and fall of 2014. Her 18-year-old victim reportedly told police that when the teen tried to break off the relationship, Watkins assaulted him and threatened to fail him.

Watkins reportedly pleaded guilty to felony charges of second-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor and was sentenced to five years in prison in 2015.

"I was put in a position of trust and I violated that trust," the mother of two told a judge, sobbing, as she apologized during her sentencing hearing, according to the Stamford Advocate.

Credit: WCBS

Stacy Schuler

Stacy Schuler, a 33-year-old high school health and gym teacher from southwest Ohi0, was convicted of having sex with five students in 2011. Some of them were football players.

According to The Middletown Journal newspaper, a former high school football player testified that he and a friend had sex with Schuler at her home. The student also said he had sex with his teacher a total of seven times during five visits.

She was sentenced to four years in prison in 2011, but was reportedly granted early released in 2012 after serving about a year.

Credit: Warren County Jail

Brittni Colleps

Brittni Colleps, a 28-year-old teacher, wife and mother of three, was convicted on 16 counts of having improper relationships with students in August 2012. She was sentenced to five years. Authorities say the 28-year-old former Kennedale High School English teacher had sex with the students at her Arlington, Texas home over a period of two months.

Credit: KENS

Megan Crafton

Indiana police arrested high school cheerleading coach, Megan Crafton, after she allegedly had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old male student. The part-time assistant cheerleading coach at Shelbyville High School admitted to performing oral sex acts on the teen in her car in January 2012 and was sentenced to probation in 2013 under a plea deal. The student was reportedly a member of Shelbyville's basketball team.

Credit: WISH

Carole Ann Hope

Police arrested 36-year-old South Carolina teacher Carole Ann Hope in 2011 after she allegedly had sex with a 14-year-old former middle school student. Hope was sentenced to ten years in prison in the spring of 2014 with all but two years suspended. Her sentence included five years probation being listed on the sex offender registry for the rest of her life after her release from prison.

Credit: J. Reuben Long Detention Center

Ashley Anderson

Ashley Anderson, a high school teacher in Iowa, was charged with having inappropriate sexual relationships with four male students in 2011. The 24-year-old former Aplington-Parkersburg High School math teacher was charged with four counts of sexual exploitation by a school employee.

According to a complaint, Anderson engaged in sexual misconduct with students ages 16-18 in 2011. She sent students nude photographs of herself and had intercourse with one student at his home. In June 2013, she was sentenced to up to five years in prison, running all three counts concurrent.

Credit: Iowa Dept. of Public Safety

Gabriela Compton

Phoenix police arrested 20-year-old middle school teacher's aide Gabriela Compton in March 2011 on suspicion of having sexual contact with two students. Police say Compton allegedly sent a photo of her breasts to some male students at Western Valley Middle School.

According to court documents obtained by CBS affiliate KPHO, the nude picture was circulated throughout the school. In the course of the investigation, officers learned Compton previously had sexual contact with two male students, ages 13 and 14.

Compton was charged with four counts of sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of sexual abuse and one count of furnishing obscene material to a minor. In March 2012, she pleaded guilty to the sexual abuse counts--and got a sentence of lifetime probation. She had to register as a sex offender, but she didn't go to prison.

Credit: KPHO

Gail Gagne

Gail Gagne, a 28-year-old Minnesota high school teacher and coach, was convicted of fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct for having sex with a former student and football player in 2008. According to CBS affiliate WCCO, Gagne met the student while she was working in the weight room as a supervisor at Cretin-Derham Hall High School in St. Paul. Gagne was 25 at the time; the student was 16.

Gagne is the daughter of former professional wrestler Greg Gagne, and granddaughter of famous Twin Cities wrestler Verne Gagne. She was sentenced in 2011 and eventually got two years' probation for a 365-day sentence. She also had to register as a sex offender.

Credit: CBS/WCCO

Tiffany Mosson

Indiana teacher Tiffany Mosson was arrested in April 2011 after allegedly having sex with a 17-year-old student. The 35-year-old English teacher at Covington Community High School was charged with child seduction. Police say Mosson admitted she had sex with the male student at her house several times.

Court documents obtained by CBS affiliate WISH show the relationship began with a note passed between the two in class. The two exchanged messages via text and social networking sites, then the teen began spending time at the teacher's house, sometimes for the whole weekend, say the documents.

Credit: CBS/WISH

Nadia Diaz

California high school teacher Nadia Christine Diaz was arrested September 2011 for allegedly having sex with a 14-year-old student in 2009. According to The Fresno Bee newspaper, the 26-year-old was charged with sex with a minor and oral copulation.

Diaz had been working full-time as a social science teacher at Fresno's Washington Union High School. Fresno County Sheriff's officials say Diaz and the teenager had sexual relations twice off campus in January and Feb. 2009 when she was working as a substitute teacher at the school. The student was 14 at the time.

Diaz was sentenced in 2012 to three years of probation and 30 days in an adult offender work program for having sex with a student in early 2010.

Credit: CBS/Fresno County Jail

Heather Lasseigne Chiasson

Heather Lasseigne Chiasson, a teacher at South Lafourche High School in Louisiana, was accused in Jan. 2012 for having sexual relations with a 17-year-old student she taught in 2011. The 29-year-old was charged with prohibited sexual conduct between an educator and a student and was suspended from her job.

Police at Lafourche Parish Sheriff Department questioned the male student, who detailed the alleged sexual relationship. The student described it as a "flirtatious relationship" that allegedly escalated into sexual activity, including intercourse. Police said the student also showed detectives numerous text messages - some of a graphic sexual nature - apparently exchanged with Heather Lasseigne Chiasson.

Credit: Personal Photo

Lauren Redfern

Denver area high school teacher Lauren Redfern was arrested in Feb. 2012 after she was allegedly caught having sex with a 17-year-old male student in the teacher's bathroom. According to CBS Denver, the 26-year-old woman was charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust with a pattern of sexual abuse, a class 3 felony. She was the teen's study hall teacher at Basalt High School, in Basalt, Colo. Redfern was sentenced to sex offender treatment in August 2012 and got no prison time.

Credit: Eagle County Sheriff's Office

Kristin Leone

New Jersey high school teacher Kristin Leone was arrested in May 2012 for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student. Investigators determined the 26-year-old Clifton High School history teacher engaged in sexual conduct with the male student on at least two separate occasions. Leone was sentenced to a year in jail in 2013 after she pleaded guilty to having the sexual relationship.

Credit: CBS/WCBS

Kathyrin Murray

Kathyrin Murray, 29, a West Houston middle school teacher, was accused of having sex with a 15-year-old boy at his home in 2012 while his parents were away. Police said they later discovered that Murray had sex with the same boy at a hotel on the night of a school dance and in her classroom in Memorial Middle School on two separate occasions.

Murray was removed from Memorial Middle School and let go from her position after the initial investigation. She was charged with two more counts of sexual abuse of a child and one count of improper relations on July 2. In 2014, Murray was sentenced to a year in county jail.

Credit: KHOU

Kacy Wilson

Former Osceola County, Fla. teacher Kacy Wilson was arrested for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student and sending pornographic photos to the teen, the Kissimmee Police Department reported on May 3, 2012.

CBS affiliate WKMG reports that the 28-year-old was arrested in Salida, Colo. She was charged with one count of unlawful sexual activity with certain minors and one count of unlawful transmission of pornography by electronic device. In 2013, Wilson pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful sexual activity with a minor, which carries a sentence of 15 years of supervised probation.

Credit: CBS/WKMG

Sheral Smith

Sheral Smith, a former Mississippi private school teacher, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a 14-year-old student. The relationship reportedly began in the summer of 2008.

Credit: Rankin County Sheriff's Dept.

Loni Folks

Loni Marie Folks, a Missouri elementary school teacher, pleaded guilty in 2008 to having sex with a 16-year-old student. She was charged with sexual battery after she was accused of sleeping with a 16-year-old male foreign exchange student from Italy staying in the home of Folks and her husband. She was given a 12-year suspended sentence and required to register as a sex offender.

Credit: WKRG

Tara Driscoll

Tara Driscoll, a New York teacher, was charged in August 2011 with having sex with an underage student at a Long Island motel. According to police, the victim's mother found out and contacted authorities. A board of education spokeswoman said Driscoll was removed from the classroom in May 2011. In 2012, she was sentenced to six years probation with sex offender conditions.

Credit: Nassau County Police Department

Amy Victoria Beck

Amy Victoria Beck stunned officials when she walked into police headquarters in March 2010 and told detectives she had carried on a nine month affair with a 14-year-old former student. The 33-year-old former Burbank middle school teacher was sentenced to two years in a state prison.

Credit: CBS/KCAL

Lisa Glide

Soap opera actress turned New Jersey high school drama teacher, Lisa Glide, was sentenced to five years probation after pleading guilty to having sex with a high school student twice off campus in 2008. But the supposed 17-year-old victim says he pursued her. According to MyCentralJersey.com, at Glide's sentencing, the victim sent a letter on her behalf claiming "Lisa Glide was not a sexual predator."

She was sentenced to probation.

Credit: WCBS

Heather Lynne Zeo

Heather Lynne Zeo, a North Penn School District high school math teacher in Pennsylvania, was suspended from her job for allegedly having sex with one of her students in the back seat of her family minivan and sending sexually explicit messages to another. Zeo is seen here arriving with her husband on July, 2009 for a hearing in district court in Lansdale, Pa.

She was sentenced in 2010 to one to 23 months in prison for having a sexual relationship with a student and having explicit conversations with another.

Credit: The Reporter/AP

Amber Jennings

Amber Jennings, of Sturbridge, Mass., is shown at her arraignment Aug. 2004 in Dudley, Mass. The 30-year-old Shepherd Hill Regional High School teacher was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student. She faced charges of inducing a minor under 18 "to have unlawful sexual intercourse" and sending him nude photos of herself.

Credit: AP Photo/The Telegram & Gazette

Amber Jennings

On Sept. 2005, Amber Jennings pleaded guilty to "disseminating harmful materials to a minor," in a plea agreement with prosecutors. According to court documents, she admitted emailing a 16-year-old student nude pictures of herself under the screen name "Redsox6606whore."

Credit: AP Photo/The Telegram & Gazette

Sandra Beth Geisel

Sandra "Beth" Geisel walks past the media as she turns herself in on Aug. 2005 to police. Geisel, a former English teacher at an all-boys Catholic high school was charged with rape for allegedly having sex twice with a 16-year-old student, once in a press box above the school's football field. Some believe she was actually the victim.

In November 2005, she was sentenced to six months in jail including time served and supervised probation for 10 years.

Credit: AP Photo/Tom Killips

Sandra Beth Geisel

Geisel, seen in this 2005 mug shot, made headlines again in 2006, but this time it was her bank president husband who was being accused of sexual misconduct. Geisel has since been released and made to register as a level one sex offender.

Credit: Colonie Police Department

Pamela Rogers Turner

Pamela Rogers Turner, a small-town phys-ed teacher and former college basketball player, was busted for repeatedly having sex with a 13-year-old male student, including once in the school gym. Here she is being led from a McMinnville, Tenn. Court, Aug., 2005. She was sentenced to eight years, but told to serve only nine months.

Credit: AP Photo/The Southern Standard

Pamela Rogers Turner

After serving 9 months in jail, Pamela Rogers was arrested a second time in 2006 for contacting the same 13-year-old boy and sending him sexually explicit texts, photos, and videos of herself.

Credit: AP Photo/Warren County Sheriff

Pamela Rogers Turner

In July 2006, Pamela Rogers was ordered by a Tenn. judge to seven years in jail for violating her probation on a sentence for having sex with a 13-year-old boy. At the hearing she said, "I am willing to do anything to rehabilitate myself."

Yet in 2007, she received an extra two years for again sending nude photos to the boy. According to the Felony Offender Information Lookup website, she was released from the Tennessee Prison for Women in 2012 at age 35.

Credit: AP Photo/Mark Humphrey

Mary Kay Letourneau-Fauulau

Former grade school teacher Mary Kay LeTourneau listens to testimony during a 1998 court hearing in Seattle. LeTourneau, then 35 and a married mother of four, was charged with child rape for her relationship with Vili Fualaau, who was in second grade when they met and 12 when their sexual affair began.

Credit: AP Photo/Alan Berner

Mary Kay Letourneau-Fauulau

Mary Kay Letourneau had a baby with Vili Fualaau in July 1997 when he was 14. LeTourneau pleaded guilty to raping him on Aug. 1997 and served 7 1/2 years in prison.

Credit: AP Photo/The Seattle Times

Mary Kay Letourneau-Fauulau

After serving her sentence, Mary Kay Letourneau married her victim/lover, Vili Fualaau, and raised two children with him. Letourneau, now 52, and Fualaau, later poked fun at their situation by hosting a series of "Hot for Teacher" parties at a Seattle nightclub, according to CBS affiliate KVAL.

Credit: AP Photo/The Insider

Amanda Caye Dreier

Police say 27-year-old Amanda Caye Dreier, a teacher at Ankeny High School in Iowa, and a former student of hers, 18, were found together in a car in June 2016. Police say an investigation turned up an ongoing sexual relationship between the two.

Police say the former student had recently graduated. Dreier, an English teacher, was charged with sexual exploitation by a school employee. State law prohibits employees from having relationships with students through 30 days following graduation.